Battery stacks are used in many applications including automotive, aerospace, airline, nautical, computer, communications, heavy equipment, remote sensing, etc. The battery stacks are typically arranged in series with one another to provide a power supply of a particular rated voltage to drive an electrical load. Each battery within the battery stack comprises a number of individual battery cells. The lifetime of the battery is strongly dependent on the way in which the battery is charged and discharged and will be reduced by over-charging the cells or over-discharging the cells. In addition, it is desirable to keep all the cells of a battery stack at the same capacity. This corresponds to keeping all the cells at about the same open circuit voltage. Use of the battery and over-discharge of one cell will impact the lifetime of that cell and of the battery. For example, the capacity of a battery cell that is 50 millivolts (mV) different from a battery cell operating at its nominal voltage is 5 percent (%) lower than the capacity of the battery cell operating at its nominal voltage. This difference may be unacceptable in the applications described above. Thus, battery manufacturers are constantly striving to find better and more accurate measurement techniques for measuring the voltage across battery cells. Along with improving measurement techniques, battery manufacturers are searching for ways to balance the cell voltages within a battery stack.
It has been found that one source of error in a battery monitoring and control unit is the voltage reference source of the unit. These units are typically only accurate to +/−1% over the temperature range from −40 degrees Celsius (° C.) to 150° C. For a maximum cell voltage of 4.2V this gives a possible range of error of +/−42 mV, which is typically too high for many battery applications.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a circuit and a method for monitoring and balancing the voltage of a battery stack and the voltages of the cells within a battery stack. It would of further advantage for the circuit and method to be cost efficient.